A Genuine Platform To Struggle With Violence Against Women: Kız Başına

We talked with the team leader of Kız Başına Gülsün Tercan about the founding story and the works of Kız Başına which is a social media platform that uses technology and digital communication channels uniquely to combat violence and hate speech against women. Kız Başına also ranked second among 46 projects from 24 countries in the international Social Responsibility Campaign Contest held by Facebook last year.

It says “…It’s a social media Project which studies hate speech, violence and harassment against women and children.” on your website. What did Kız Başına aim at the beginning, can you tell us about your mission?

Kız Başına is a social media platform founded by METU Instructor Yeşim Çaplı and volunteer students in 2017 which is still working with volunteer students. Our mission is to prevent violence and hate speech against women in Turkey…

Are the women in your target group university students, educated and young? Do you mostly reach young and university student women?

Gender inequality exists at every level of the society, we cannot prevent it by only reaching university students and young women. Preventing hate speech and violence does not happen only by reaching young and educated people. Women from every segment of the society are exposed to gender inequality as well as from every socio-economic status. We try to reach all women. We want to raise awareness of all women in this regard.

Kız Başına was born in Ankara, how are you able to reach other cities?  

Although the team is in Ankara, we are a social media platform and we can reach all provinces thanks to social media.

Digital Carnation Project

Can you tell us about your most recent Project Digital Carnation?

With the Digital Carnation project, we wanted to be the voice of 735 women who were killed in Turkey in 2018 and 2019 and show people how close we are to violence. For this purpose, we printed QR codes titled “A Woman Was Killed Here”. We determined the neighborhoods and streets of where those murders happened. We sent stickers to these locations and to volunteer people with these QR codes. When you encounter those QR codes on your way, you scan the QR code and you will see the news of the woman who were the victims of murder there.
While collecting those news, we organized a journalism workshop. In the workshop we conducted under the leadership of Erhan Karadağ, we have rewritten the articles about the murders of women by purifying the article from the violent and masculine Language used by the media. In other words, when you scan the QR code, you won’t be able to see the news that feeds violence within the current media which are written in masculine language.
Next, we created a digital exhibition using augmented reality. For the digital exhibition, we asked artists for works that they wanted to dedicate to women’s murders. With this works we have collected, we created a 3D exhibition with augmented reality. We transformed the digital exhibition into a mobile exhibition format and held digital exhibitions on university campuses.

You are publishing the Legal Guide to Combating Violence Against Women at Udemy for free. How do you create resources for your projects?

The reason we publish it for free is because we believe that everyone should receive this training. Since the students of Law could not get this education completely, we prepared the Law Guide so that they could get it for free. We provide resources to our projects from the awards we have won from international competitions. We also have a social enterprise model which we call Art Gallery. We also provide resources from here. We work with the American Embassy for our legal projects.

What was the worst situation you have encountered as Kız Başına team?  

Many women reach us from social media and we often have to talk to women who are victims of violence and harassment. We guide these women legally and psychologically. I cannot sort them for the worst one right now, but there were many examples that shook us.

Şule Çet Example and the Impact of Social Media

In cases such as Şule Çet, do you think that justice would be done more difficultly if there were no effective campaigns on social media against violence and murders against women?

Social media is the key point here, because it is a valuable resource for creating a public opinion. People now prefer to communicate and transfer information over the new media. As we have seen in such examples, we think that social media is very powerful.

What kind of feedbacks do you get for your work? Have you made an impact analysis concerning your work? How many people have benefited from your work?

We are getting very good feedback from all the work we have done so far. Our target groups were always different in all our works. We had a project where we worked with teachers, hairdressers and pharmacists. We got very good feedbacks from it as well.

In our Digital Carnation project, we have reached 500 thousand volunteers in 72 provinces in response to 735 women’s murders committed in 72 provinces in 2 years. There is no QR code left in the Digital Carnation Project that we weren’t able to send. In all our projects, good feedbacks are given to us on social media and by e-mail.

What have you gained by the projects and Works you carried out? What did Kız Başına teach you?   

Kız Başına has taught us a lot about life. First, we learned how gender inequality is at the center of our lives. We learned how violence against women occurs, how many murders there are, what violence means and that women are exposed to violence in every area. Apart from that, producing bigger projects and using social media effectively with a small team and fewer resources, they all contributed a lot to us.

The High Cost of Using Technology

You have various projects such as Digital Carnation, E-Security Guide, First Fictional Trial Laboratory on Violence Against Women. Can it be said that it is easier and less costly to proceed through technology and digital communication channels?

No it can’t. In fact, the item we spend most on our budget is the technology item. It is much more costly to do something using technology. The reason we proceed through technology and digital communication channels is that we can reach more people with this. Technology is a big part of all of our lives, and that’s how we use it as well.

What are your plans for the future? Do you have a purpose of gaining a corporal identity?

We aim to become a foundation in the future and this way we mean our projects to become more sustainable.  

Has there been any developments in your studies recently that motivated you or gave you hope you?

We recently helped a victim who contacted us, we got a very good return from her and that was really motivating for us. Our projects getting so much volunteer Support as well as Digital Carnation Project, it’s really motivating for us…

How can people who want to participate in or support the projects of Kız Başına?

We have “we are looking for a teammate” posts on our social media accounts. Apart from that, those who want to support us can reach us through our social media accounts and by e-mail.